I'm still upset: Tablers for Lyndon LaRouche with Obama/Hitler pictures outside my Trader Joe's...

[Hekate]

... when I went by this afternoon.

It was despicable. It was vile. The whole hate Obama sickness. They had a large poster peddling venom about George Soros too. I yelled "How dare you!" before I could even think to stop myself. Then I complained to TJ's because they've always had a policy of NO political activity on their sidewalk, but the manager on duty said he could not get rid of these folks and had to content himself with putting up a blackboard on an easel next to their table saying that TJ's has nothing to do with them. He said the woman in charge is aggressive and hostile.

Apparently the manager has already gotten the runaround from the cops, who say it is a private mall and therefore the property owners have to make them go away. He was only too happy to give me the phone number of the property manager. I phoned and left a detailed message about my unhappiness and included my name and phone number. Their outgoing message included a number for emergency maintenance, and I thought what the heck and called them too.

What was interesting is that my husband said that these same folks were hanging around a popular organic market over by the community college until about 250 faculty (the students being gone at the time) emailed each other and started phoning the store's manager that they were going to boycott the place if the LaRouche tablers didn't go away. I guess they then decided to move 10 miles north to do their thing and now we have them. Hubby got on his email and sent his colleagues the info that I had garnered, including the phone numbers and the name given on the OGM.

I'm not entirely sure what to do next. I'm thinking of checking back at TJ's tomorrow to see if the table is set up again. I'd like to get some information from the LaRouche-ite directly, but I probably blew that option by yelling at her -- oopsie. Maybe I can get a friend to chat her up about her plans to remain there and any schedule she has in mind. At that point I could do an email blast of my own asking people to be aware -- but then what?

I'm all for First Amendment rights, but this was hate speech. And when did Lyndon LaRouche go from being a nutbag to being a nutbag who hates Obama enough to call him Hitler?

What do you think? Any ideas?

Hekate

[harry_pothead]

1. The larouchebags did the same thing at SFSU this week.

[eShirl]

2. I wonder how they'd like an anti-Larouche table set up next to theirs?

[Critters2]

9. The problem with being anti-Larouche is that you're likely to try to make coherent

arguments. There's nothing logical or coherent about Larouche. So, you'll just give yourself a really bad headache. And have no effect on the Larouchies. You just don't speak their language, I'm afraid.

[orleans]

16. nah....

i say someone should set up an anti-l table to just inform people: "the larouchies are batshit crazy"

[DefenseLawyer]

3. You're obviously not really "all for First Amendment Rights" n/t

[Hekate]

10. I draw the line at hate speech, especially the kind lately that advocates assassinating Obama

... and gives people all kinds of reasons why it would be a good idea.

Just call me a little oversensitive, DefenseLawyer.

Hekate

[Freddie Stubbs]

33. If they are advocating assassinating the President, you have a duty to contact the Secret Service

[omega minimo]

4. Set up a table next to them with a big sign with an arrow pointing at them saying

<<<<<<------------- "We're With Stupid"

[immoderate]

5. One thing LaRouchies are liberal about is evoking Hitler.

--imm

[MrModerate]

6. LaRoucheites use hate exclusively to draw attention to themselves . . .

They really don't have anything else. Obama-Hitler? Sure. I remember running across them in Seattle in the mid-1970s and it was all about Uhlman's Brownshirts (mayor at the time, who'd used cops to break up a fight when LaRoucheites started beating up people at a union rally).

They're just plain crazy, and the cops are probably absolutely right that the property owners need to be responsible for getting them to move along. I'd doubt that public shaming would have any effect whatsoever except to get their pulses racing -- which is exactly what they want.

[saltpoint]

7. A half dozen 11-year olds with Super-Squirters could have put the

LaRouche table out of business in no time flat.

[lunatica]

8. It sounds to me like the woman leader

is doing plenty to alienate everyone already. That Obama/Nazi crap doesn't wash with most Americans. It's turned out to be the mantra for the idiocracy class though, but you actually have to be a real idiot to join it. Not just a sometimes idiot or a faux idiot. A real idiot with an IQ in the lower end of the bell curve. Everybody else is just too damn smart.

[tsuki]

12. I don't know where I heard it, but I've taken to calling them the

Illiterati. They don't like that.

[lunatica]

13. Illiterati is good. I think it was a new DUer who came up with that one

[conscious evolution]

23. Ignorati

is the term I have been using lately.
I do like illiterati,though.

[katanalori]

11. just wow

I wonder if they chose Trader Joes and an organic market to make people think they are disgruntled liberals?
duh (at myself) - of course they did.

All I can think of to do is to get a few friends, surround their area, and sing "America the Beautiful" or
"Jerimiah Was a Bullfrog" (if you are old enough to remember that song) .....or sing happy songs.

If they shove, push or touch a hair on your head, call police and file a report for assault.
Get everyone you know to go take their vile literature and then rip it up or burn it in front of them.

Seems a short leap from where they are to acts of violence. WTF is WRONG with people? Besides Beck, Limbaugh, and Palin telling them that their freedom is being taken away and they MUST rebel? I would be tempted to make nice with them, ask how I could join their cause, and find out who is hiring them.

:wtf:

[KamaAina]

14. The irony is, LaRouche runs as a *Dem*.

Or at least he did before he became a convicted felon (credit card fraud). :eyes:

[Freddie Stubbs]

35. He has run as a Democrat since then

He simply attacks everyone, Democrat and Republican alike.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

15. MORE INFO HERE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe%27s

[OffWithTheirHeads]

17. I'd love to see them show up at MY T.J's

We would run them out of town so fast they would think they were crackers in Harlem. We don't tolerate that shit in the Bay Area. You shouldn't tolerate that shit in any place where T.J.'s can exist.

[villager]

18. Yours, too!? Saw them here in El Lay, the other day, same damn thing...

Earnestly explaining their "positions" (tho' I'm at a loss as to why anyone stopped...)

Almost posted the same thing, Hekate....

[Wilms]

19. I had a little chat them.

I commended them on their strategy of focusing there recruitment efforts on the dregs of the republic party...the only folks that would have anything to do with guys peddling that Obama Nazi BS.

Since when is LaRouche Fox News?

[csziggy]

20. Get the coundtrack to the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration

And a boombox. Sit at the table next to them and crank up the volume. Get enough people to take every table around theirs and provide large signs to screen off their table entirely.

Then ignore them and enjoy the music!

[Hekate]

21. Maybe I'll go for the 11 year olds with the Super-Squirters against the Illiterati!

If nothing else it will give everyone else a laugh.

I appreciate being able to bring this to DU. It was a nasty shock after watching the Kennedy funeral for hours.

Hekate

[TreasonousBastard]

22. They've been setting up a lot out here, and...

they're largely ignored. But, then again, most tablings out here are largely ignored.

Most of the time they set up outside post offices, and they tried to buttonhole me when I made the mistake of making eye contact when I went to buy some stamps. They can't be argued with, and rational discussion is impossible. This new crop of idiots seems more obnoxious than the old ones I remember, but maybe my memory is faulty becaue LaRouchbags have always been obnoxious idiots.

I'm curious just why this resurgence, though. Haven't heard from these nutters in years, and now they're all over the place.

[lunatica]

28. Actually for the last few years they were campaigning against Cheney

for war crimes. Other than to recruit some more young people in college I don't think they were effective. The normal US Citizen didn't know who Cheney even was thanks to the lack of civics classes anymore. I used to see them pretty regularly

[eridani]

24. The WA state ones seem to have gone away

There was a major efflorescence from 2004-2006, though.

[livetohike]

25. Contact the District Manager for Trader Joe's

My b-i-l retired from TJs (as a store manager). Ask the store manager for the phone #. Tell him you weren't satisfied with his response. This is the route to take. Tell the District Manager exactly what the store manager told you. It's B.S. They could stop it if they wished.

[TheCowsCameHome]

26. Barney Frank kicked a LaRoucher's ass good and proper last week.

at a town hall meeting in Dartmouth, Mass.

They deserve more of that.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

27. I went to one of their meetings

It was one of the most boring things I'd been to.

I'm glad I didn't go to more meetings!

[tabatha]

29. They were outside Lazy Acres, too

The Lazy Acres manager sent his customers the following letter:

http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?nid=21962&linkSource=edhat.com

The comments include posts about the Trader Joe's tabling.

Excerpt from one of the posts:

Today, the LaRouche people were in front of Trader Joe's in Goleta. Representives of TJ's say that they are working with the property managers to deny them sidewalk space. Their supposed cover is the current debate on medical insurance reform, but their vicious posters prove otherwise. As a side note. I did ask one of the LaRouche men if he had read the healthcare proposal and he admitted he had not.....

[Hekate]

30. Thanks Tabatha. I wonder if part of it is the difference between the SB PD and ours in Goleta...

I have no way of knowing if that makes a difference, but it might. I did not try calling them yesterday, and maybe I should have.

I will continue to pursue this today and see if I can get hold of the TJ's district manager. I like their store here in Goleta, and this is a shame. Lazy Acres also has a good reputation in the community, for many reasons.

Thanks also for the link. If you contribute to EdHat you might point out the Hitler/Obama picture as being part of the offensiveness of these people.

Hekate

[tabatha]

34. I wonder if some enterprising person

could fight back with tall wide posters on stands that contain key important parts of the health bill to both take up the space they want to use, and counter their arguments.

[lolly]

31. Seems to be their new habitat

I posted a couple weeks ago about them when I encountered them in a San Fernando Valley TJ's.

Someone posted a feed back form to send to TJ's headquarters, and i used it.

http://www.traderjoes.com/action_issues.asp

It's a start.

[Arkana]

32. They're disciples of Lyndon LaRouchebag.

You should feel sorry for them--they've obviously had involuntary lobotomies.

[SmileyRose]

36. When Obama imprisons and slaughters 6 million innocent people give me a call

I took a lot of shit but I still say "Bushitler" was dumb and so is "Obamao" and "O'Hitler" and all the rest. It is intellectually lazy and does not serve anyone well. IMHO our political discourse deserves better. Not only because we need to be very clear about what we are dealing with, but we also do not want to desensitize on the sheer evil that was Hitler and the Nazi's of 1930/40's.

It is enough that the Bush administration was both evil and inept. It is enough that in the future out leaders and teachers will hold up the Bush administration as the standard for "fail".